It took a while to get there, but this is the right call. All the other big conferences have cancelled, holding this would have been terrible PR.
Question is: How far out does your conference have to be for you to not cancel right now?
Question is: How far out does your conference have to be for you to not cancel right now?
I think it's very likely what will happen with coronavirus is what happens with other pandemics: there are multiple phases, and the second phase is usually the worst. The initial phase usually isn't as severe; there are widespread measures to reduce the spread that bring numbers down after the initial onslaught, and it looks like coronavirus also has a seasonality factor that lessens its contagiousness during warmer months. Come next fall/winter, though, people have put their guard down and have somewhat of a "quarantine fatigue", and that's when the second wave just explodes as latent underlying cases spread extremely quickly.